Transmission: Salmon Run, 2009
Flash animation and custom max/msp A/V construction, melded through an automated Jitter effect sequence

The work is formed by two video feeds. On the left are 3 compound blobs morphing between themselves, struggling for identity. On the right is an “oscilloscope” read representing parametric changes to the performed audio.

Through tempered feedback these Salmon make their seasonal return trip to their place of birth visible to the viewer.

As an artist and as a man I often question my inherent compulsion to both create and procreate. For these fish, the return journey is carnal even as it utilizes an abstraction of the former trip as an experiential manner of intelligence. The thirst for youth is ultimately embedded with a trojan machination of nature. One which reiterates our gathered wit and project within our spawn.

“A Challenge to the Uniqueness of the Absolute Infinity in the Nature of God”, December 2009
Generative A/V installation

Made using max/msp by layering LCD objects. Birds are modulated polygons drawn using randomly generated coordinates. The landscape is composed of layered histograms, generated by randomly generated data.

At an impulse, the limit of my interest in the creation of a self-regulated digital-ecosystem as I approach the theories of Georg Cantor, given Pantheism. An ironic hell.

Through various means of filtering random data (representing nature) into self-governing sets, new pantheistic solipsisms are created. Does this suggest that we each have the powers of a god, or have I merely excised a manifest destiny?

Ian Brill, December 2009

“After Géricault”
(How Many Preparators Does it Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?)
- Ian Brill, 2009 

Premiers Friday December 11th,
as part of “Behind Our Scene” at Space Gallery, Pittsburgh

A one-pass sample. The piece has no beginning or end, and is always different.

Addressing both the “The Raft of the Medusa” and the reutilized premise of “changing a light bulb” this generative work uses modern digital tools and illusions to present the processes and recordings of an artist as an ever-changing image, or painting.

While addressing both the brutality of the Romantic painting and the necessity of fellow laborers to laugh off the harshnesses of life, through the unexpected abstraction of a familiar reality this work invites the viewer to retreat farther into a state of nature to consider our own motives and chosen roles in society.

A moment of reflection.

SATURATION #9, Video

Music: “SideBlinder” by Ian Brill, 2008

Made entirely out of White Noise, resampled using the Ableton instrument “Sampler” and audio effect “Beat Repeater”, and various sends.

I used custom software to provide improvised video accompaniment.

This work is the final study of a series inspired by Kurt Hentschläger’s “ZEE” and  the “Machine Improvisation” show at the Wood Street Galleries in Pittsburgh, 2009. 

While my mind is riddled with endless notes, observations and inspiration from these works, I decided to formally cap the series with this engineered ambiguity of minimalism and dramatic expression.

Each creative limitation becomes leverage within another creative dimension. I immersed myself in this project for the first half of 2009, exploring options for self-regulated and decentralized image exploration (as it was magnificently done in “12_Series,” by Telcosystems,) sating a hunger left over from experiencing “ZEE.”

Like most of my generative work, what I am sharing with you now is just an excerpt. It is from a larger performance that has no definitive beginning or end. I am looking forward to Saturation #10.